Funds management under fire

OUTSOURCING:Legislators across party lines blasted the government’s handling of the Labor Insurance and Labor Pension funds, which have suffered heavy investment losses

By Jake Chung / Staff writer, with CNA

The commission had contacted the committee again about the situation in July and the committee managed to recover the money in three accounts that were in ING SITC’s hands, Huang said.

Huang said the committee had been negotiating with ING about compensation since July, but the firm was only willing to pay back the NT$13 million in one account even though it had caused the Labor Pension Fund to lose NT$81 million.

“I gave the firm one last chance yesterday,” Huang said, adding that if the firm refused to come to terms today the committee would be taking legal action.

However, Huang also praised ING SITC, saying that it had helped the Labor Pension Fund earn NT$1 billion in 2010.

Bureau of Labor Insurance deputy manager Luo Wu-hu (羅五湖) said that the Labor Insurance Fund had recovered NT$50 million from ING SITC, adding that it would continue to ask for the other NT$38 million that the firm had cost the fund.

“If the firm is unwilling to cooperate, we would not rule out legal action,” Luo said.

The Public Service Pension Fund also waded into the issue yesterday morning, saying that it would be filing for compensation with ING SITC for the losses incurred, totaling NT$64.2 million.

The Public Service Pension Fund said that it would be terminating its contract with ING SITC early due to security concerns, adding that part of the reason was that the firm was being investigated by the FSC over its investments in Ablerex.

The lack of supervision within ING SITC led to its mistake of investing in Ablerex and losing public money, the Public Service Pension Fund said, adding that it had made the decision to ban ING SITC from any outsourcing management applications with it.

It also said that up to the end of September, it had made NT$10.2 billion, adding that, if unrealized income were tallied up the approximate number would come to NT$27 billion.

Period yield for the Public Service Pension Fund stood at 5.628 percent, while the annual yield rate stood at 7.503 percent, it said, adding that it had not suffered any major losses, despite media reports to the contrary.

Meanwhile, DPP caucus secretary-general Tsai Chi-chang (蔡其昌) made a motion requesting that investment for the Labor Insurance Fund and Labor Pension Fund be made more transparent in an effort to raise government efficiency at fund management.

Pointing out that the average return rate for the Labor Insurance Fund from 2002 through last year was about 3.03 percent and the Public Service Pension Fund stood at 2.39 percent, Tsai said that the world’s largest pension fund, the California civil service pension fund, had a average return rate of 6.25 percent over the duration of a decade.

Long-term return rates for any domestic Exchange Traded Funds (ETF) stood at 7.23 percent, and the Bank of Taiwan had over 1.78 percent returns over a period of 10 years for the two-year fixed deposit program, Tsai said.

“If we get a 1.78 percent return for a fixed deposit, which doesn’t require any handling, it shows that the government’s handling of the funds was not that efficient,” Tsai said.

The government should increase the rank of the fund monitors and decrease its intervention, Tsai said, adding that raising the quality of the management level and establishing special research teams would also help to increase efficiency.